Internet giant Google got first dibs on Europe’s priceless documents starting with France. Google and Municipal Library of Lyon had come to an agreement to have the library’s antique books scanned for free within 10 years. [source] This in turn will give Google the rights to the scans for use commercially for the next 25 years. [source] The antique books include a 16th-century edition of predictions by Nostradamus, Isaac Newton’s 17th-century scientific treatise “Principia” and a work by the French humourist Rabelais from the same period. [source]
I am torn in this new development. It is exciting that such rare and great books would be available online but these are priceless artifacts that should be handled with respect the utmost care. It’s not like they’ll just be retyping words to create digital copies like what Project Gutenberg had started, making the accessible online for free. Also, the fact that Google will have some sort of rights to make money off the scans, possibly privately owning them. It is indeed a huge undertaking that the world, not just the French government, should be vigilantly watching closely. I guess nothing is really for free these days.
Image from MorgueFile.com
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The Internet has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for 2010.
The nomination was made after a petition by the Italian version of Wired Magazine, which cited the Internet’s contributions to “dialogue, debate and consensus through communication”. Signatories include Iranian activist Shirin Ebadi, and organizers say the nomination will make for a legitimate entry. [source] Nominees for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize reportedly include a Russian human rights group and a Chinese dissident. [source]
Alfred Nobel, prize founder, included in his 1895 will that “peace prize should reward efforts to promote fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies.” [source]
I think this is the first time an inanimate object actually got nominated to this prestigious award. Indeed, the Internet had been instrumental in assisting a number of political and social issues. Blogs and forums allowed topics and various opinions to be posted and read out there forming citizen journalism; Twitter and Youtube had become tools to quickly send and spread out messages from war stories in the Middle East, the state of the election in Iraq to Haiti’s plea for help.
The Elders of the Internet must be very proud. ^_^ {The IT Crowd}
I attended the PHP Developers Summit 2010 today presented by the PHP User Group Philippines in partnership with Microsoft Philippines. The event was held in Hotel Rembrandt, Quezon City. I went with my co-workers Edwin, Randy and Clair with our registrations fees sponsored by the awesome Orange & Bronze Software Labs. (Thank you!)
The summit featured topics presented by various speakers from different Philippine companies:
Website Spark and Bizspark
Alezandra Nicholas (Microsoft Developer Evangelist)
Adventures in the Age of Frameworks
Vedasto Rey Portugal (8layer Technologies)
Introduction to Globe API using PHP
Greg Igaya (Globe Labs)
PHP in IIS7 (using Fast CGI)
PHP and ASP.NET interop via SOAP
Rodney C. Jao (MVP for Device Application Development)
Git Version Control System
Alec Joseph Rivera (8layer Technologies)
Scaling your PHP applications
Paolo Alexis Falcone (Senior Developer, Friendster Inc.)
Introduction to Venture Capital for Beginners
Chin Hin Low (CEO of PhiLabs, Head of Internet Investment of parent SR Capital Holdings Inc.)
Windows Cache Extension for PHP
Rick Bahague, Jr. (Computer Professionals’ Union)
Why you should start a startup and what it takes
JP Dela Torre (Development Director and Co-Founder, Pigmata Media Inc. and Pinoy Web Startup)
(Full programme details and speaker info, some sessions were skipped for various reasons)
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program, a freely distributed software for photo editing, graphics and image composition. Gimp is currently on version 2.6 and free to download from http://www.gimp.org/downloads/. A Windows XP (SP2 or later) installer is also available.
I (re)tried my hands on Gimp, following this really good tutorial - Advance Orb using Gimp.
If you’re used to the Photoshop, you’ll find Gimp a bit tedious to use at first as some tools settings are set differently or not set automatically. It’s like there are a few extra clicks needed to get something done compared to Photoshop’s tools. Overall, I think like any other new software, you just have to get used to it and learn. =)
I got the tutorial from 50 Design Tutorials for Mastering Gimp
Firebug 1.5 is here with new and improved features developers and designers will be very happy about:
Read the release notes here and check out the announcement from Rob Campbell.
*Updates*
Welcome to some random musings of a fangirl.
I'm Rjene, a L'Arc~en~Ciel fan x web designer x front-end developer of sorts. This is my blog, Ink.
